Good afternoon. Today, we cannot begin our meeting without expressing our solidarity with Ukrainian people in their suffering and their losses. We hope that this can be resolved soon, returning to the longed for peace that allows all the people involved to rebuild their lives. The war has led us to reconsider our activities in Russia. Our presence in Russia is not material. Following the start of the war, we announced the divestment of our stake in the Blue Stream pipeline that delivers Russian gas to Turkey. The exploration joint venture with Rosneft was frozen in 2014, and this remains the case today. This crisis has put a spotlight on Europe's dependence on Russian gas, adding volatility to an energy market which was already characterized by tight supply and high prices in 2021.
This situation make us even more resolute in our ultimate goal to work for the security and sustainability of the energy system, while keeping a sharp focus on a just energy transition and value creation for our stakeholders. We are pursuing these objectives by leveraging our global upstream and partnership with producing countries to find alternative and additional supply opportunities for Europe, and accelerating our decarbonization target, working to offer progressively decarbonized service and products to our clients in order to effectively tackle Scope 3 emissions. Our strategy is really fit to deliver on these objectives. Technology, and specifically proprietary technology, is at the foundation of our strategy. This has been the case in the past for our traditional businesses, and even more now to face the complexity of the energy transition.
Technology underpins the development of new businesses and allows us to be at the forefront of market change so we can bring to scale and provide new solutions to customers more quickly, generating stronger returns. In this context, a stakeholder alliance is a necessary condition to effectively deploy the new models and the new technologies, removing barriers to change and involving everyone in the transformation of the energy system. Let me take each of these factors in turn. We believe that the energy transformation transition is first and foremost driven by technological transformation. We research, deploy, and develop technologies that are suited to our needs and that respond to the specific decarbonization challenges of our clients and geographies. The excellent results achieved in exploration testify to the value generated by this approach.
Technology brings us where we want to be in a position of leadership toward energy transition, finding solutions to secure decarbonized energy for society. In the last 6 years, we have invested more than EUR 7 billion on the research, development, and deployment of technologies. We have established solid collaborations with more than 17 national and international universities and research centers, and delivered more than 7,000 patents and 400 projects.
Our innovation portfolio spans three major platforms: renewables and new energies, decarbonized solutions, and circular and bioproducts. New business and financing models are required to invest in growing our innovation portfolio and striking the right balance in cash allocation and returns in order to accelerate the energy transition. We are therefore creating dedicated entities with tailored business models focused on their customers and the capability to independently access the capital market.
Such entities continue to benefit from Eni's R&D, HSE culture, project management, and financial strength. Furthermore, through the valorization of these dedicated entities, we can bring new capital into the company, helping to strengthen our balance sheet and ensuring capital efficiency, thus scaling up our new businesses while generating competitive shareholder returns. In line with this approach, we are working to merge into a dedicated entity our biorefining business with the marketing and low carbon product and services for sustainable mobility, a winning customer-centric proposition along our downstream value chain.
We also retain the flexibility to consider other funding options like venture capital for early-stage technology. Finally, stakeholder alliances. Transforming the energy system requires working alongside a wide range of stakeholders to develop mutually beneficial solutions, synergies, and new regulatory frameworks.
To deliver a just and inclusive transition, we foster and leverage our stakeholder ecosystem, which includes our people, who are fully engaged on this path, leveraging their experience and skills. Our customers, we answer their decarbonization needs with multiple solutions at home, on the move, and at work. Communities, institutions, and citizens. Our long-term energy and development partnerships are the foundation for new business models. As recent example, we have signed agreements with different countries in Africa to secure our biofuel business through the vertical integration in agriculture value chains to produce sustainable feedstock. Industrial partners, working with them to timely deploy the low carbon solutions in order to create decarbonized industrial clusters, as we are doing in the U.K. through the CCS with the HyNet North West consortium.
As a result of this strategic approach, we can further improve our emissions reduction target and be faster in our decarbonization efforts. In 2020, we set absolute target inclusive of Scope 3 emission, and in 2021, we set our long-term target of net zero emission by 2050. Today, we are committing to go even faster, announcing our plan to reach -35% by 2030 and -80% by 2040 of absolute carbon emissions. This accelerates our path towards net zero by 2050, and furthers aligns our emissions reduction pathway to 1.5 degree Celsius scenarios. We are bringing forward Eni's net zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2035, and setting a new intermediate target of -40% by 2025.
Our decarbonization targets are underpinned by an industrial transformation plan that is designed around economically feasible solution and available technologies. In upstream, our production will plateau at 2025, progressively increasing the share of gas to 60% by 2030 and up to more than 90% beyond 2040. Oil volumes will reduce in the medium-long term, contributing more than 50% to our full decarbonization target.
About 40% of emission reduction will come from midstream and downstream actions. In midstream, we will progress in reshaping our gas portfolio, valorizing equity production to increase the value of our gas and LNG. This is even more relevant given the current crisis in Europe. In downstream, we will accelerate our conversion of traditional refineries to biorefineries and circular economy hubs, while de-risking feedstock through vertical integration. In addition, our carbon capture and storage projects will support our hard-to-abate emission reduction.
The residual 5% of emissions at 2050 will be compensated by high-quality offsets. While reshaping our business to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we are going to offer a full set of decarbonized energy products and services to our customers. Plenitude is expected to expand to more than 15 GW renewable capacity by 2030, offering green energy to retail clients. Biorefining capacity will grow from 2 million tons per year in 2025 up to 6 million tons in the next decade. Hydrogen will contribute around 4 million tons per year by 2050. We are particularly excited by the prospect of deploying our first magnetic fusion commercial plant in the next decade based on the competitive advantage built over recent years, potentially opening the route for a limitless source of clean energy.
To fund this growth, we will progressively increase the share of investment for new energy solutions, reaching almost 30% by the end of the plan, doubling to 60% by 2030, and up to 80% around 2040. In a decade, this business will be free cash flow positive and increasingly to around 75% of group free cash flow from 2040. Now let's move to our three-year plan, starting with natural resources. Our upstream commitments are grounded on enhancing the sustainability and value of the portfolio and reducing its cash neutrality and carbon footprint. We will do this by combining production growth, expanding integrated gas and LNG development, continuing to apply strict capital discipline, and reducing Scope 1 and 2 absolute net emissions.
We expect production to increase to approximately 1.9 million barrels per day by 2025, driven by the contribution of our start-up and ramp-ups projects. In 2022, production will be around 1.7 million barrels, progressively increasing throughout the year. Over the plan, we will bring on stream 11 major projects. Baleine in Côte d'Ivoire, the LNG hub in Congo, Coral in Mozambique, and Dalma Gas in UAE. Gas projects in Italy, Indonesia, and Norway, which together with ramp-ups, will add almost 800,000 barrels per day to baseline production in 2025. We will further enhance the sustainability and the value of our production. Our net carbon footprints, Scope 1 and 2, will decrease by 65% by the end of the plan compared to 2018, on track for our 2030 net zero target.
Average upstream cash neutrality will reach about $25 per barrel from $30 per barrel in 2021. We will remain capital efficient with equity CapEx at around EUR 4.9 billion in 2022, and EUR 4.5 billion on average over the plan. As a result of this, our upstream free cash flow in the plan will be around EUR 29 billion at our scenario. Exploration is still the foundation of our high-value, low-carbon upstream, and is a key enabler for our transformation toward a more gas-rich portfolio. Over the last 10 years, we have discovered 12 billion barrels of oil equivalent, of which 80% is gas.
In the plan, we target 2.2 billion barrels of equity resources, of which a large part will be gas, at an average unit exploration cost lower than $1.5 per barrel. Exploration activity will focus on low risk, near field, infrastructure-led opportunities in proven basins for nearly 90%, allowing a faster time to market and low development and operating costs. Almost all our frontier exploration in areas where we have strong geological knowledge is in proximity to countries where we are already in operation. Our portfolio and global investment over the last decade put us in a very strong position to significantly grow our natural gas business with around 50 TCF of reserves and resources.
Our gas projects are well positioned to serve key markets and are expected to reach more than 15 MTPA of contracted LNG volumes by the end of the plan. For example, we expect Egypt to contribute with Damietta rising to full utilization, Mozambique Coral to start up later this year, and the Congo gas valorization project, where we've had FID early this year using flexible modular FLNG and which is expected to start up in 2023. As a result of the growth and the contribution of equity gas production and gas portfolio optimization, we expect our GGP business to deliver a cumulative free cash flow contribution of around EUR 2.7 billion over the plan.
Considering the tight gas supply, high prices, and the volatility due to the Ukraine crisis, we have immediately started working with other strategic partners to fast-track and to develop gas, both through existing pipelines and LNG. We can make available to the market in the short, medium term, more than 14 TCF of additional gas resources. In addition to our first business combination, Vår, we are excited by the recent signature of the agreement with BP to set up a new company named Azule Energy, an equally owned business combination in Angola. With BP, we share the same values and objectives in terms of just transition. Azule Energy will be financially independent and will access third-party capital to accelerate growth.
The combined business will have a material portfolio of production, development, and exploration opportunities, one of the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa. By combining our synergy portfolio of assets, we expect almost 15% cost savings, thanks to operational and logistic efficiency and optimized procurement. Besides unlocking new oil offshore opportunities, Azule Energy will also lead the new gas consortium that first upstream natural gas partnership in Angola to develop non-associated gas and supply gas to Angola LNG, supporting our integrated gas portfolio while meeting domestic gas needs.
In upstream, we continue to seek opportunities through this business model to enhance scale efficiency and growth opportunities in other geographies. The CCS business will play a crucial role in the energy transition, capturing and storing emissions to abate industry. We have decades of experience in storing natural gas in depleted fields.
Our existing infrastructures will be quickly repurposed to provide low cost and reliable CO₂ storage, enabling the creation of low carbon industrial clusters. The first example of this is the U.K. HyNet North West project, with the start-up in 2025. In the first phase, the injection rate will be 4.5 million tons per year, to be increased to 10 million tons per year in the early 2030s. Emissions will come from existing industrial plants as well as from future hydrogen production. We are working on a second CCS cluster in U.K. and one, and on a first in Italy, in Ravenna area. We are also actively engaged in R&D to boost the efficiency and performance of the capture processes.
From our current project pipeline, in 2030, we target a stored gross capacity volume of about 30 MTPA, of which around 10 MTPA is our equity. Turning now to energy evolution. Following our strategy to reduce CO₂ emissions over the plan period, we are expanding our effort to decarbonize green and bioenergy products to our customers. To that end, 25% of group investment are dedicated to growing profitable new energy businesses across the green power value chain and in sustainable mobility. Now I'm pleased to introduce another step of our transformation. To further maximize value generation from our biorefining and marketing businesses, we have decided to set up a sustainable mobility company. Uniquely positioned as a multiple energy, multiple service, customer-centric business. This is drawing a strong customer base, marketing footprint, and vertical integration with our biorefineries.
The company will operate in the context of mobility energy mix, shifting rapidly towards sustainable fuels in the next decade. In the plan, we target to reach around 2 million ton per year of biorefining capacity, thanks to the expansion of the Venice plant and another traditional refinery conversion, and to reach 6 million ton per year in the next decade. Such growth require a vast supply of diversified feedstock. In order to secure this, we are developing a network of agro hubs, and we have signed agreement in different countries in Africa, where in most of them, we already have upstream activities. These hubs will ensure an integrated contribution of bio feedstock to our processes, targeting 35% of vertical integration by 2025.
In line with our strategy, we will be able to deliver our customers a multiple set of green, bio, and low carbon products available to our service stations. Our strong marketing footprint in growing biorefining underpin the earning growth of this initiative, which will reach more than EUR 0.9 billion EBITDA by the end of the plan. We will target upside through enhancing the vertical integration of feedstock, increasing our retail network while offering value-added services. Moving now to the green power value chain. Plenitude represents another example of our satellite approach. It integrates renewables, energy solution for customers, and widespread EV charging network with a model designed to deliver value. The company aims to be an ESG leader targeting net zero Scope 1, 2, and 3 by 2040.
In renewable power generation, we expect to reach more than 2 GW of solar capacity by 2022, and more than 60 GW by the end of the plan. Our retail activities, where we already have a proven track record of growth, are set to reach 11.5 million customers by 2025. During the same period, since we are concurrently expanding our network in e-mobility, we expect to reach around 30,000 charging points. Thanks to this approach, planned EBITDA is expected to more than double by the end of the plan versus 2021, up to EUR 1.4 billion. This listing process is progressing, and we have filed the registration document with the Italian market authority. Now, I leave the floor to Francesco for the financial section.
Thank you. Thank you, Claudio. Now let's have some detail on our financial plan. Eni's financial plan is a structural component in the execution of our transition strategy. While preserving a strict capital discipline with an average CapEx of EUR 7 billion per year, in line with last year plan, we will continue to restructure our portfolio to highlight the real value of our businesses and to maximize our opportunities of growth. Moreover, we'll continue to align our financial tools to the strategic milestone design in our decarbonization plan. At the end of the plan, EUR 13 billion of financing instruments will be linked to Eni's strategic KPI. Over the next four years, we will strengthen the balance sheet with a leverage pre-IFRS of around 10% at Eni planning scenario.
Our CapEx plan maintains strict discipline, targeting EUR 7.7 billion in 2022, and an average group CapEx at EUR 7 billion. In 2022, about 25% of the group yearly CapEx will be devoted to low carbon business, 5 percentage points higher compared to the last plan's average. In particular, through Plenitude, we will boost our renewable capacity and increase Eni's customer base. We will further build incremental biorefining capacity while expanding our sustainable mobility proposition. Over the plan, we will retain a high degree of flexibility with nearly 40% of cumulative CapEx uncommitted, ensuring a material buffer versus future market volatility. Even in a higher price environment, selectivity on project sanctioning will remain crucial. Our plan pipeline of project screens high, both in terms of profitability and resilience.
Upstream project returns amount to more than 20%, and they remain robust at 17%, even assuming 20% lower prices. In renewables, we target to outperform the WACC after tax of our new investment by a minimum of 200 basis points, also by exploiting the distinctive route to market offered by the retail business. Portfolio management will be a key component of our plan, and we will leverage two main drivers. The first driver is the new business models approach to unlock our asset growth potential and highlight their full value through market valorization mechanism. In Upstream, we will create dedicated vehicles in specific countries. In Norway, we have recently accomplished the largest IPO in the oil and gas sector in over a decade.
In Angola, through the business combination with BP, we are creating Azule Energy, a large financially independent E&P company, which targets to replicate the success of our. We will also seek similar opportunity in other countries. In addition, we are focusing on speeding up new businesses and technology related to decarbonization. Last week, we successfully completed the listing of the first SPAC on energy transition in U.K. It will be an opportunity to capture or valorize emerging technology to reduce carbon emission in different business segments. Finally, in 2022, we are planning to list Plenitude, our industrial and financial entity, which will target the reduction of the Scope 3 emission of our clients. The second driver is portfolio high grading, exiting or diluting our exposure from non-core assets and countries.
At the same time, we will continue to evaluate tactical acquisition to optimize our portfolio. In the four-year plan, we expect to generate from our portfolio management activity a positive net cash contribution of around EUR 3 billion. Since 2020, we have increased our sustainable instruments that currently amount to EUR 8 billion, targeting more than EUR 13 billion by 2025. In 2021, we published the world's first sustainability-linked financing framework of our sector, and issued the first sustainability linked bond, contributing to UN SDGs of climate action and affordable clean energy. We aim to capitalize this leading position and further strengthening it. From now on, all the senior bonds will fall into our sustainable framework. As a consequence, we expect the share of sustainable finance sources on total gross debt to reach more than 25% at the end of 2025.
Turning finally to our cash generation. Assuming a Brent price of $80 per barrel, cash flow from operation before working capital is expected to exceed EUR 14 billion in 2022, and more than EUR 15 billion at a $90 per barrel price. In 2022, considering CapEx of EUR 7.7 billion, we expect an organic free cash flow of EUR 6 billion-EUR 7 billion. Over the next four years, at our planning assumption, we will generate a cumulative cash flow from operation before working capital of about EUR 55 billion, and a free cash flow before working capital of more than EUR 25 billion. While generating a solid stream of free cash flow, we will continue to focus on our resilience.
Cash neutrality, the level of price necessary to cover our CapEx needs, and the floor dividend will be maintained below $45 per barrel throughout the plan period. Reflecting the continued successful execution of our strategic path, a reinforced balance sheet, and an improved outlook for commodities, the Board of Directors has decided to enhance 2022 distribution policy through the following set of actions. By setting a reference Brent price for the year between $80-$90 per barrel, we will distribute a total annual dividend of EUR 0.88 per share, introducing a quarterly payment basis. The dividend will be equally split in September and November 2022, in March and May 2023. In addition, Eni will launch a EUR 1.1 billion buyback program following shareholder approval in May.
Overall, at a EUR 13 share, a EUR 13 price for the share, this implies over 9% distribution yield, highlighting our competitive shareholder return. Moreover, to further share upside from commodity price above our reference, the board has decided to provide an extra buyback for 2022, equivalent to 30% of the incremental free cash flow in the event that the prices exceed $90 per barrel on a yearly basis. This upside price scenario assessment will be made in July and further updated in October. As an example, if in July the upside price scenario assessment is announced at $100 per barrel, we will add around EUR 350 million to the buyback, raising its overall amount to almost EUR 1.5 billion.
Lastly, reflecting the underlying resilient performance of our businesses, the sliding scale of the variable dividend per share has also been simplified and enhanced. In the backup, you can find an updated table that summarizes each level of dividend and buyback for prices in the range between $43-$90 per barrel. Now I leave the floor to Claudio for the conclusion.
Thank you, Francesco. To conclude, any distinctive strategy enables us to address the challenges of the current energy market to deliver secure and sustainable energy to customers, while accelerating our path to net zero. We will boost gas supply to key markets, expanding integrated projects and LNG developments. We expect to continue growing along the green power value chain with Plenitude, in sustainable mobility, and in the circular economy. As a result of our strategic progress and strong financial performance, we are announcing our competitive shareholder distribution. Thank you for your attention. Now after a short video, we will, together with the team, be ready to answer your question.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. The first question is from Jason Kenney with Santander. Please go ahead.
Well, thanks for the presentation. Fascinating insight and update. The four-year plan last year forecast free cash flow EUR 17 billion. This year, at group level, I think you're saying EUR 25 billion. I'm just wondering if you can help me bridge the change 17 to 25. How much is the macro shift in the assumptions and the scenario? How much is the additional free cash flow from, you know, new projects, new commitments? How much is actually just the one-year roll forward as well? The second question, if I might. You mentioned a reliable dividend stream from Azule in Angola. I was wondering if you already had in mind a particular payout ratio for that particular business. Thanks very much.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Jason. I think that clearly the comparison versus last year, I have to take into account that the assumption was on a completely different scenario. At the time we presented last year was a $50 scenario in the first year, that progressively growing towards $60 and $65. Here today, we're working with substantially a scenario that is practically $20 or $15 higher. You have to consider that that difference is impacting just for the fact of that scenario of price of oil. You have also to add the price of gas. You should probably to close that gap up to substantially 80%- 90% of the difference.
The remaining part is related to business improvement, further growth, and therefore all the factors and the strategic element that we are adding to the business. Of that EUR 8 billion, I would say that six to seven are related to scenario. The remaining part is due to strategic improvement for the Angola business combination. On Angola, the impact will be substantially to create the largest operator in the country and probably one of the largest in the African region. The idea is substantially to replicate the Vår model. We will deconsolidate debt, because the debt will be allocated to the new company, almost EUR 2 billion related to Eni debt.
We will have also the benefit of a deconsolidation along the four-year plan of CapEx in the range of EUR 3 billion. We also acquired, let's say, interesting, attractive, let's say, distribution policy, but we cannot provide you disclosure also because this will be related to a larger financing package that is still under negotiation.
Okay, thanks very much.
The next question is from Irene Himona with Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I have two questions, please. Firstly, you announced today the creation of a new sustainable mobility company, combining your biorefining and marketing. You aim to grow that business, as I understand it. I wonder if you can give us a sense of how much would you intend to grow the marketing footprint and where exactly, and would you eventually think or consider an IPO of this new business? My second question. You raised EUR 500 million, I believe, from the Vår Energi IPO. Saipem might require a capital injection in due course. How should we think about how Saipem fits exactly in Eni's transformation into low carbon and into your financial plans? Thank you.
Talking about the mobility sustainable mobility company, we are in the process to build and have a, you know, as we said, starting from the feedstock. We are working on the feedstock that is essential for the biorefineries to give stability to the result. In the company, we are going to have also all the feedstock, the agro ops, as said, the advanced second level advanced feedstock. We're going to increase the number of biorefineries. As we said, we have 2 million tons per year by 2025. In the next decade, we are going to accelerate the transformation of the remaining refineries, building also new refinery to reach at least 6 million tons per year.
That is the plan. It will be Europe, but not just Europe. We are possibly building also biorefinery in Africa, where directly linked to the feedstock for the regional supply. The company is under construction. We want to finalize the exercise to create this company, with the marketing. At the moment, we are not considering the expansion of our marketing, but just the replacement with biogreen fuels products. The exercise will be completed by the end of 2022. It's quite an early stage to talk about a possible IPO. I think we need, as we did for Eni gas e luce, then became Plenitude, some years to create a stable growth company. Already we plan to have EUR 0.9 billion EBITDA by the end of the plan for this business. Now we are being sure that we can maybe also do better, but it's not for tomorrow, the possible listing of this company. Francesco.
Yes. Related to the Saipem, clearly there is no link between Vår and Saipem, and there is just a, let's say, a cash flow comparison. Clearly from the point of view of Eni, Saipem is as for the other stakeholder, remains a company that we support. As you have seen, there were changes in the organization, in the management team. The company also is a major player for all the activity that are going on, both in the oil and gas now in this period of security of supply, reemergence and relevance, and also for the activity of energy transition. I think that it will remain an important element for the market. Any other consideration have to be taken following the future restructuring that are going on, and we cannot be more precise as there will be next week a board meeting for Saipem. I think this is the answer.
Thank you.
The next question is from Biraj Borkhataria with RBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Two please. The first one is just thinking about your production guidance in your latest update for 2025 relative to the last capital markets day, which I think you're targeting closer to 2 million barrels a day. Can you just bridge the gap between those two figures? Also, highlight how much contingency is in the 1.7 million barrel a day target for 2022. The second question is on some of the quick payback projects you have in your portfolio. You have a pretty good track record at getting things online within you know a few months, and you have a market in Europe, which is obviously screaming for as much gas as possible. How much optionality do you have, you know, whether it's Algeria or elsewhere, that you can accelerate some of these developments, and bring more gas products online? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, sir. That question is for Guido Brusco, that is our CEO for Natural Resources.
Thanks for the question. Clearly the gap between the last plan and the current plan is essentially due to the risking and optimization of our portfolio. We focused on more competitive and more profitable barrels, and this is testified also by the decrease of the cash neutrality that as an average last year was $28. In this plan, the average is $25. As far as the optionality of gas, as you have seen, we have a large portfolio of gas reserves and resources. We can unlock in the short, medium term, about 14 TCF over time. We have projects to unlock this quantity of gas, essentially in Congo, Mozambique, Algeria, and Egypt. This may bring more than 50,000 barrel of additional production in 2025 with less than 5% of CapEx increase. Thank you.
The next question is from Massimo Bonisoli with Equita. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thank you for the presentation. A couple of questions from my side. One on portfolio management. Out of the EUR 3 billion net contribution target, how much did you already achieved from the transaction already done in 2022, like Vår Energi, Azule Energy or Enipower? The second one on CapEx. On a proportionate accounting basis, what would be the CapEx spending over the planned period? I mean, can we compare this planned CapEx versus the last year planned CapEx because of the change in accounting of the different entities?
Okay. About the net portfolio that you measured, that is as a sum of disposals and acquisition. In terms of disposal, the amount that we can say have already achieved is in the range of EUR 1.4 billion-EUR 1.5 billion. Actually, you have to consider that last year also we were acquiring particularly for the renewable business. What we can say that is still we have we are working in a gap in the range of EUR 1 billion. Expectation is actually to further collect more cash from additional disposal activity and IPOs.
Related to CapEx, I mentioned that the CapEx that are substantially exiting due to the accounting, in particular, we are referring to the 3 billion related during the four-year plan for Angola. This is the major component that is exiting and compared to last year. You have to consider that is on a yearly basis, something in the range of EUR 600 million-EUR 700 million.
Thank you.
The next question is from Martin Rath with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the presentation. I had two questions, if I may. First of all, with regards to the dividend, I have to say I am somewhat confused a bit in the sense that the schedule that you laid out for the dividend last year sort of implied a certain sensitivity between dividends and oil prices. i.e. for every $5 or $10 increase in the oil price, the dividend would go up by a certain amount. The dividend that you sort of now announce implies that beyond sort of $65 a barrel for oil, there's almost no sensitivity anymore between the dividend and oil prices. I was wondering if that is the right sort of interpretation of what you're sort of trying to signal here.
That beyond 65, actually the dividend, you know, doesn't really sort of go up all that much anymore. I was wondering, you know, what the sort of thinking behind that was. Also, I mean, you know, as per the guidance, the free cash flow should be running at something like EUR 7 billion a year. The dividend is about EUR 3 billion a year. The dividend seems very small compared to the historic sensitivity implied by last year's schedule, as well as the free cash flow that you're guiding for. I was wondering what your thinking was behind the dividend.
The second one is perhaps a bit more operational, but you made a comment that Eni could make 14 TCF of natural gas sort of available to Europe sort of over the short to medium term, I think you said. I was wondering if you could translate that into sort of like an amount per year. What it you know like, I don't know, two years from now, four years from now, what does that amount to in terms of a sort of a BCM per year type figure? Is that a translation that you could make for us? I would find that very helpful. Thank you.
Okay. About the dividend, Martin, I think that you should look at the slide in the backup where we present substantially the distribution yield. You have seen that currently, that there is a progression of the dividend based on our fixed component and the variable component. Then, at a certain time, there is the kick in of the buyback. Already last year, we presented a table where the dividend was stopping substantially to grow between $65-$66 while buyback was jumping. If you look at that slide that I referred, you see that actually the main element of our distribution in the higher scenario will be buyback. Why is buyback?
Because substantially, buyback is a flexible tool, is also the best way also to create a benefit for the longer term in case the price will drop in order to protect your dividend amount, and also in supporting substantially the share price in this environment. Just to give you an idea, the current, let's say, reference of dividend and buyback that is equivalent practically of the almost EUR 1.2 per share at current price is practically the maximum distribution Eni had since 2008. We are substantially close.
At the time was one point, probably 1.3, but we are substantially close to the maximum. As we said before, in case there will be a higher price scenario and we will add the additional free cash flow distribution, we will overcome that amount. I think that is a quite, let's say, competitive and generous distribution, but with a sense of having a tools that will benefit the shareholders also in case of future drop of prices or volatility in prices that can occur with the cycle that we are seeing.
Okay. The question on the 14 TCF of gas?
It's me. It's not Francesco for the question. It's too difficult for him. Joking, clearly. The 14 TCF we have to consider that we are going to cover the next winters, 2022- 2023, and the 2023-24, and the third year, wintertime. We start gradually immediately during the summertime. The first production is not just our production, but also is coming from the production of Algeria. In this case, it's coming from through pipeline. We have spare capacity in the Algerian pipeline, Tunisian-Algerian-Italian pipeline, and we have spare capacity as well in the GreenStream from Libya.
The first batch will be pipe because it's not only is faster, but also because in Algeria and Libya, we have the possibility to increase the production through infilling operation and projects already started. That would be substantially to cover next winter. We can consider that through pipe we can collect between 9 and 11 billion cubic meter per year. That is the amount that gradually we're going to increase. We have also LNG, and LNG is coming from some LNG that we have and that we are going to divert to Europe. For 2023- 2024, we have additional LNG that is coming from the Congo LNG project. We have already sanctioned one project.
We are going to try to sanction a second one so that cumulatively we can reach about 5 billion cubic meters per year. We have Angola, where we can use this also fast-track if it's possible, and also for Mozambique, not Angola, Mozambique. All this. We have also the national production, Italian production, that through a strong push of the government, we also try to increase for about a couple of billion cubic meters per year. That's some of the components. We are in discussion, already discussed. We start very, as I said during the presentation, we start immediately interacting as soon as the war started, interacting with our host countries where we produce. That is important because we are talking about the possibility to produce our reserves in a fast track. As Guido said before, that is not implying a huge amount of capital. It is almost embedded in the plan and could account for about 5-6% of the overall budget.
Okay, thank you.
The next question is from Christyan Malek with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Good afternoon, and thank you for a great presentation. Just a couple of questions from me. First of all, I'd like to understand where you stand with Russia in terms of the risk associated with gas volumes from Gazprom. Clearly there's a focus to scale up your gas output and projects where you've leveraged in the past and with very strong execution. I'd just like to understand how you see Russia over the medium term, given there seems to be a bit of a bifurcation in views, or at least in terms of corporate approach to how to treat Russia in terms of exposure.
The second question is sort of pertains to the cash return framework, and sort of following on from Martin's question, which is, I understand you've clearly raised the oil price range, but you haven't raised the cash proportionately. I sort of understand some of the reasons, but is there any pressure from the Italian government not to raise buyback or dividend, and/or dividend? I guess I say that in the context of sort of the growing narrative around the risk around social, sort of some sort of windfall tax around profits being made. I wonder, is there any link between the kind of that pressure, particularly given we are in an energy crisis, vis-à-vis your cash return framework? I appreciate it's not a fair question. I just feel like it seems to be on everyone's minds. I wonder whether you can comment on that and how you're interacting with the Italian government. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I start from the last question from the Italian government. I have to say there is no any pressure. Clearly who is in charge for our dividend policy is our board of directors and also our strategic progress on our business plan and our strategy. That's all, and it's absolutely our decision. There's no pressure at all, no interferences from the Italian government. I can talk about the first question, Russia. I can give the floor to Cristian Signoretto, that is our director for GGP.
Hello. First of all, in terms of volumes, we are talking about between 1/3 and 40% of our gas supply portfolio in Europe. You know, as we speak, flows are coming regularly, as we nominate, they are coming regularly. Clearly, as Claudio was saying before, we are in light of this uncertainty, we are trying to find optionalities in our portfolio, especially from our equity projects, North Africa and Africa, but also from other supplies coming from the north Europe, because as you know, we have also important connection between France and Germany to Italy that we own and we can use in order to substitute eventually gas if it's coming short. Lastly also, we are leveraging on creating optionality in our LNG portfolio. As we were saying before, trying to create the opportunity to bring back LNG into Italy, where if there will be shortfall in the gas supplies from Russia. Thank you.
Yeah. Could I just follow up with one more potentially? A follow-up question.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, maybe sort of more medium term around your strategy around oil volumes. Do you see a situation where it could be more acceptable for you to grow or flatline your oil volumes over time, only because this is where you've been exceptional in the past, and you've talked about the cash neutrality falling further. I wonder whether you see a world where you could be justified to maintaining your oil volumes over the medium term, rather than having to decline, as your sort of opening statement, Claudio, was around energy security. I just wondered if you could comment on that, or are you absolutely hell-bent on declining your volumes over the medium term? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for the question. Our strategy is quite consistent in the last three years. We have now a problem of energy security. Clearly, that is a main point, but we don't trade off our production growth with the climate change strategy and objectives that we feel we took a strong commitment. We want to decrease our Scope 1 and 2, and we want to decrease our Scope 3, and we have a clear strategy. Also in the emergency situation, through the efficiency, you can increase your production, reducing and capturing the emissions. There is no trade-off.
Clearly, gas is inside our strategy, and what we need now, especially now, nowadays, for Europe is gas. Because gas could be the problem for electricity, gas is a problem for the industry, for the household. All the system is linked and rely on gas. That is really following our strategy. For that reason, we are increasing our gas production. We are trying to increase and send to Europe, in this case, to southern Europe, to Italy, all the gas that we can find. We have found through exploration a huge amount. If there is the need to increase our production, the production would be mainly gas. But without any trade-off or any compromise with our commitment for the climate change.
Thank you.
The next question is from Mehdi Ennebati with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions, and thanks a lot for the very interesting presentation. Two questions please on my side. First one regarding, you know, your renewable fuel production guidance. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that your last target was 2 million tons per annum by 2024. Now you are delaying it a little bit to 2025. Just would like to try to understand, you know, why are you doing this? Do you need to do, let's say, much work to make, you know, the new units performing better? Is it because, let's say, of you trying to reduce, you know, the CapEx?
I just would like to understand, you know, what's the issue here. Is it a feedstock sourcing issue that you underestimated? I just would like to hear what you have to say about that. The second question is regarding your CapEx. You say in 2022, EUR 7.7 billion CapEx. Is it full organic, or is it taking into account some inorganic, let's say, CapEx? I also would like to understand. I presume I assume that the share of the low carbon business will keep growing through the year, 25% on average. I think that it will start at a lower point, and will keep increasing. What other division will see its CapEx, you know, coming down in the next three to five years to leave some space to the renewable, the low carbon business CapEx? Thank you.
Okay, Guido.
Thank you, Mehdi, for the question. The difference in the guidance between the old plan and the new plan is essentially, as I said, the de-risking and the optimization of the portfolio. We focused clearly on the more competitive and more profitable barrels. As we have seen this, the result of this is the decrease of the cash neutrality, which is a good proxy to show that. Thank you.
It's about the CapEx. Correct, EUR 7.7 is excluding any acquisition cost. Instead, for the renewable business, share of 25% is clearly growing and is a natural growth, because at the end of the day, that is related to the target and to the transformation transition strategy that we are implementing. It will grow, but the idea, as we have seen, is to build the vehicles that will help to finance this growth from one side. On the other side, we could have vehicles dedicated in the upstream that will be able to substantially finance themselves in a deconsolidated approach. At the end of the day, the model or the approach is to keep this CapEx rating, CapEx level at a steady pace.
If I may, thank you. Just to come back on that. If you want to produce more gas from North Africa, is this taken into account in your EUR 7 billion average CapEx, or no?
Yes. Substantially, we have practically all this growth that you may be referring to already included in this CapEx. There could be further upside with very limited impact in terms of CapEx.
Okay. If I may, sorry, just to come back to my first question, because I'm not sure, you know, you got it. It was about the biorefineries. Why did you delay by one year, you know, your 4 million ton per annum target, please?
We have two kind of intervention of our biorefinery. We are improving the Venice biorefinery. That is the first point. We needed time to select one of the Italian existing refineries that have to be reconverted. That is mainly a problem of permitting and finding the location. That now, I think, is almost done, but that needed an additional year.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Alessandro Pozzi with Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. I have a few questions. The first one is on the production profile, 1.9 million barrels by 2025. I believe you previously indicated we should have seen a gentle decline beyond that, and I was wondering whether that's still the case, and whether you have a target in mind of what the production of Eni should be, let's say, in the latter part of the decade. The second question is on the sustainable mobility, the new division. I think it's EUR 900 million EBITDA. If you can give us a breakdown of the relative size of each business and where do you see more opportunities for growth. Within the sustainable mobility, I think there is a new target of 6 million tons of biofuel production, and can you give us maybe a bit more color on how you're planning to achieve that, please?
For the 1.9 million barrels per day, that's happening in 2025, that we are peaking our production. What is going to happen after that is that we are going to decrease the oil production, and we are going to keep alive and increase gas production. For that reason, we said that there is a steady state for some years after 2025. The mix is going to change also because 80% of the resources we found, the 50 TCF is gas. That is a composition. We are going slightly down, but we're going down with oil, but we are going to increase for sure the gas also because it's the right window.
There is an emergency that now is due, is clearly even more strong than before in terms of emergency for gas. Also before the crisis, you remember that the supply of gas was in deficit or was less than the demand. We have a strong window of opportunity to deliver the gas that we found and increase our cash flow. That will be very useful for also for the growth in the new business. The second.
Split between in terms of EBITDA, the 0.9 are substantially split 2/3 related to marketing and 1/3 related to the biorefineries.
For the next decade, when we say we are going to increase up to 60 million ton, clearly, I cannot give a clear timing for each of them. What we have in our plan, in our mind, is to transform our existing traditional refineries. That's a very strong point. First of all, to reduce the inefficiency and the cost of feedstock oil, we don't produce oil. We have to transport oil and also because there is an excess oil capacity in Italy. That is the first aim. As I said before, we have also in discussion with the other countries in Africa and the U.S., also Middle East, to build biorefineries. That are the areas. Clearly, we start with Italy because we have to make this transformation because of costs, but also because we want to reduce the hard to abate part of our industry that is mainly made by refineries.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Oswald Clint with Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Just want to go back please to the, you know, the speed time to market, the fast times to market that obviously sets you apart. I saw some reference today to an objective of limiting your idle capital. Of course, unproductive capital employed has always been, I guess, a big issue for the sector, and it's impacted group level returning capital employed. I wanna get a sense of, you know, when I think about last year's returning capital employed, either 7% or maybe it was 9%, depending on the way you calculate it.
Would you say your upstream CapEx employed looking through this plan is gonna be, you know, towards the low end of what it's ever been, and therefore, the returns really should start to become a lot more visible at the group level? Or is this, you know, new energy CapEx, which obviously takes time to come through, could still act as a little bit of a dampener on returns? That's my first question. Secondly, I just wanna go back to Azule Energy and just make sure I think about it correctly. Should I be thinking about this as a strengthened oil asset? You talked about the 15% lower OpEx, and it just runs steadily.
Is there anything I should be considering around the solar part of this business, you know, the onshore gas consortium? Is there any gas realizations, gas demand we should be considering? You know, how much better does Angola LNG become on the back of this deal would be excellent. Perhaps if you could just talk about maybe cash flow sensitivity to natural gas at this point would be excellent. Thank you.
Talking about the inactive capital or idle capital, all our action in the last decade, especially in the last eight years, was to reduce this inactive capital. That was done through a specific strategy. Phased the project and reduced the time to market for Zohr, and not only for Zohr in Algeria, for the offshore in the Block 15/16 in Angola, that have been in three and a half years. Deep offshore has been split in two projects and created cash flow, and we reduced drastically. In the very beginning, if I remember 10 years ago, every time we had at least 30%-40% of inactive capital in our projects, reduced drastically less than 20%, then 15%.
It is part of big strategy because when you go through an exploration in near field closer to existing facilities and you can really split. Also, if it is a giant field, you can go through phases and reduce your inactive capital. That is really our strategy. It became more and more we can say easier because now our team working with this kind of culture. We do not want big, complex projects. That is finished. It is finished forever. It is something that we do not want. We do not want this risk. We do not want to spend 6 years before starting our cash in, and we want to make everything easier. You see Congo. Congo is LNG. We have at least 10 TCF there to be developed.
We started not just with that, but also with the help of some contractors. An LNG that is very fast to implement. Clearly, we are in shallow water, and that easier. We use jack-up, we put the plant, the liquefaction plant, the jack-up, and we work very close to the existing wells. We're filling wells, we use the existing infrastructure. It's a different way to work, and that aims clearly to increase the internal rates of return of our investment, reduce the inactive capital, and try to be lean and flexible. Also, because with this kind of volatility, we don't want to be stuck with big and complex project. That is our daily fight because you know big company like big project, complex projects, super complex technology that is 10, 20, 30 years ago. We are not we are no more in this period. We must be different, and it's what we try to do and to be.
As far as concerns Azule Energy. Azule Energy is a unique vehicle because it merges the assets of BP and Eni that are very synergistic in Angola. A lot of efficiencies can be made, particularly on logistics, on procurement process, and of course on running costs. As far as the renewable, Azule Energy is an integrated energy company and renewable is part of its business. They have already developed a renewable project in the south of Angola of about 50 MW, split in two phases, and at the end of this year, they will start up the first one. On gas.
Azule Energy before, and now Azule Energy has been elected to be the operator of the large base of resources of gas of the country, which will be used primarily to supply the domestic and of course to fill up the Angola LNG plant. Of course, should this to be accomplished, other opportunity for monetization are on hand. Thank you.
Thank you very much, both of you.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. I think that we are finished with our call. Thank you very much, everybody, for attending our Capital Investment Day. I hope that you find it useful and helpful. If there is any question, you can address the team, Investor Relations, and we'll answer promptly. Thank you. Thank you very much and have a good weekend.